Warm-You-Up Desserts

It's history in the baking: These chill-chasing confections, inspired by recipes from GH's past 125 years, will hit a sweet spot.

In 1984, a gooey Gateau au Chocolat kicked off GH's long-running love affair with flour-free cakes. This recipe is almost identical to that first fudgy forerunner  five eggs provide the leavening, and there's a truffle-like creaminess to the texture  with one main change: Toasted hazelnuts are folded into the batter, adding a delectable depth of flavor.

When we ran a rendition of this recipe in 1972, Meyer lemons hadn't gone mainstream. Now the fruit's available in most supermarkets, and its sweet-tart taste gives this dessert a delicious delicacy. The lemons are also what helps create the light layers  since the acid in the juice can't bind with the egg whites, the dish divides into a citrusy cake and a creamy custard.

From the moment in 1930 that restaurateur Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie  that's her iconic recipe on the back of the Nestle Toll House package  bakers have played with the proportions and fiddled with the formula. Including us  our 1957 riff on Wakefield's recipe calls for cornflakes, and the cookie here replaces a cup of the flour with oats to make the edge crisp yet keep the center chewy. Supersizing the cookie to pizza proportions is faster  and more fun  than dropping the dough by the spoonful.

Versatile and varied, shortcake can be combined with almost any fruit, from rhubarb to raspberries. Our classic 1889 recipe paired it with fresh-picked strawberries; this version relies on ripe bananas, a perfect winter-season substitute. Since the bananas brown in a rich rum-butterscotch sauce (think bananas Foster minus the flambé), we cut the cake's sweetness with two tangy tweaks  buttermilk in the batter, and sour cream in the cream.

Beignets  French for "fritters"  first appeared in our pages in 1969, but the puffed, powdered donut has been a New Orleans breakfast basic since the 1800s. Although the custom in the Crescent City is deep-frying, we call for baking, which saves time and calories. The easy espresso-chocolate dipping sauce gives the pillow-shaped pastries a caffeinated, Creole kick.

Early bread-pudding recipes, like the one in our June 1885 issue, called for bread crumbs  except that didn't create the crunchy, toasty top we craved. The solution: swapping the crumbs for thick chunks of bread. Our all-inclusive recipe also stirs up the country's melting pot: the milk is sweetened with creamy, caramely dulce de leche (a Latin American favorite), then poured over challah, an eggy braided bread usually eaten on the Jewish Sabbath.

Gingerbread has been a GH culinary constant since 1886. Over the years, while the essential ingredients  flour, molasses, ginger  stayed the same, each era tweaked the tradition. Here, our latest take on this spice cake combines ground ginger with fresh-grated for a double dose of sweet heat. The zesty lemon curd, made in minutes, balances the bite.

Nothing says "celebration" like frosted chocolate layers  which may be the reason this cake has reappeared countless times since 1927 (including a 1984 version made with mayo!). To contemporize this classic, we ramped up the richness: The batter's butter content is now higher, which makes the cake moister, and the frosting's flavor is more intensely chocolatey, thanks to a one-two combo of cocoa powder and semisweet chocolate.

A simple dessert that's usually served chilled, fruit compote can trace its history back to colonial cookbooks  and to our October 1886 issue. This contemporary compote (which is naturally fat-free) includes seven dried and fresh fruits, from figs to oranges, simmered in a spiced sugar-brandy syrup. Spoon over cake, ice cream, or  for a low-fat finale to a meal  top with a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Originating in 19th-century France's apple-rich Loire Valley region, this inverted pie turned up in GH in 1997. While it's traditionally made with puff pastry and apples, we substituted a less labor-intensive dough and a mix of more season-specific Bosc and Bartlett pears. The crust, which bakes on top of the fruit, doesn't get soggy and, because it becomes the tart's bottom, doesn't have to look perfect.

Upside-down cake came to fame courtesy of canned pineapple  and a 1925 Dole Pineapple recipe contest with GH on the judging panel. Of the 60,000 submissions, some 2,500 were for upside-down cake, and the dessert's ease was part of its popularity. That piece-of-cake preparation  place fruit in the bottom of a skillet, pour in batter, bake  is the same here, but with navel oranges subbing for the pineapple.

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